"Ruin": An Old English Poem

"Ruin" is an Anglo-Saxon or Old English poem similar
to "The Wanderer," "The Seafarer," "Resignation," and
"Deor" in presenting a lament over worldly ambitions and the
folly of social aspirations. The poem describes a ruined city and its
collapsed state, imagining what and whom filled the
city in its heyday and is now gone. Scholars point to Roman Bath as the
probably site described, but clearly the poet intends to identify all
earthly projects as evanescent. The ending portion of the poem is
corrupted, but by then the poet has labored over his images and made
his point.

This version of the poem is an amalgam of the translations by
S. A. J. Bradley in his Anglo-Saxon
Poetry (London, NY: Dent, 1982), R. K. Gordon's Anglo-Saxon Poetry
(London, NY: Dent, 1964), and N. Kershaw's Anglo-Saxon and Norse Poems
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1922).

Ruin

Wondrous the stone of these
ancient walls, shattered by fate.
The districts of the city have crumbled.
The work of giants of old lies decayed.
Roofs are long tumbled down,
The lofty towers are in ruins.
Frost covers the mortar,
Tiles weathered and fallen, undermined by age.

The original builders are
long in the earth's cruel grip,
a hundred generations since have passed.
These broad walls, now reddened and lichen-aged, brown and gray:
once they withstood invading kingdoms.
Now, beneath countless seasons, they have fallen.
The rampart assembled by many, crumbles still,
Though hewn together with skill of sharpening and joining,
Strengthened ingeniously with chain and cabled rib-walls.

All the inhabitants
succumbed to pestilence.
Swept away are the great warriors.
Their towers and walls are deserted,
the desolate city crumbles away.
Who could repair any of it,
for they are long dead.

So the courtyards and gates
have collapsed,
and the pavilion roofs of vaulted beams crumbled.
Here where once rich men in resplendent clothes, proud, wine-flushed,
gleaming in war trappings, gazed upon their gold and silver treasure,
their gems and precious stones,
upon their wealth, and property:
the bright city of a broad kingdom.

Stone courtyards ran streams
of ample water, heating the great bathes,
conveniently flowing into the great stone vats ...